December sales favored discounters
The retail terrain had a rather violent transformation in December. Department stores lost apparel share in an unprecedented move toward discounters, TJMaxx, Ross Stores and Kohl’s. TJX had 14% comparable store sales increases, and Ross’ were 12%. Kohl’s same store sales increased 4.7%. Because of store expansion, these chains had greater sales increases of 21%, 16% and 8.8%.
Dillard was down 7%, while Bon Ton was down 2.6%. Macy’s was up 1% in December, but the chain also had a near 30% increase in online sales in December.
In the next issue of The Informationist, we discuss how e-commerce is changing cosmetic marketing and the retail in general.